Just another summer Monday as the Dow gained 100 points on end of the month good volume. The advance/declines were better than 2 to 1 positive. The summation index is moving back up. End of the month tribulations today as well. A day of hanging around really as we wait for the next catalyst to get things moving one way or the other. The S&P 500 remains short term overbought. We are sticking with our view that the August SPY puts will be the next idea here. When to purchase them remains the question. Perhaps we'll see some beginning of the month money flows into stocks tomorrow. We'll stay patient for now. Gold was up $4 on the futures. The US dollar was higher and interest rates were steady. The XAU gained 2 3/4, while GDX added 2/3. Volume was light. Both the XAU and GDX finished off of their best levels on the session and that's not a positive. The inverse head and shoulders pattern for GDX remains intact but we'll need to see a rise from here on good volume to be believers. Hasn't happened yet. My GDX August calls have swung to a small profit. Mentally I'm feeling OK. The VIX was up slightly today which doesn't fit with a positive day for stocks. The short term indicators here have turned up which implies some selling on the horizon. We'll see. We still have to sift through earnings this week and the jobs report on Friday. Asia was up and Europe mixed to complete the trading month. We'll check out how the market begins the month of August tomorrow.